The 88-year-old sovereign is by no means a Luddite – owning a mobile phone and an iPod on which, it is said, staff download The Proms for her to listen to.

She and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, 93, are also said to be surprisingly computer literate.

But according to senior royal sources the Queen does find the trend for members of the public to stand close up and attempt to film their encounters with her ‘not a little disconcerting’.

On her recent state visit to Paris, it is understood that some over-excited members of the public had to be physically restrained as they rushed forward, camera phones brandished, to photograph and video her

The Queen was declared to have carried out the ‘best photo-bomb in history’ when she walked, smiling, into a shot being taken by two Australian hockey players at the Commonwealth Games earlier this summer.